Hypersexuality, also known as hypersexual disorder or sex addiction, is a disorder marked by a set of very specific criteria of the course of six months or more. These include sexual impulses, actions, or fantasies that match four or more of these five criteria:
- Allowing excessive amounts time to be consumed by sexual thoughts and desires as well as plans to act on them.
- Recurrent use of sex (even fantasy) to cope with things like boredom, anxiety, or depression.
- Recurrent use of sex (even fantasy) to cope with stress.
- Repeated failed attempts to reduce sexual activities.
- Continual sexual acting out with no regard for the physical or emotional risks it can pose to oneself or others.
Additionally, a diagnosis is dependant on whether the patient's daily function is being impacted by the sexual behaviors and whether the behaviors can be tied to medication use of the occurence of a manic episode.
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